Cooking from the Blogs-What I Made

Well, now that the Spoilers have had their fun at the expense of us bloggers, I will get on with the business at hand.

For a number of reasons, sweets were the focus of my blogland cooking this week.  I did also make a new barbecue sauce.  On Wednesday, my oldest daughter called and asked if I was planning on making cookies.  She was looking for some to take in her lunches to work.  Now mind you, she is way over 40 years old and could make cookies herself.  She lives alone now that her daughter is in California, doesn't like to bake, and I still spoil her, so I do make cookies for her from time to time.

I knew that these Lunch Lady Peanut Butter Bars from Six Sisters Stuff would just fill the bill for my daughter.  When I found them, I realized that they were very similar to a peanut butter bar cookie I used to make that was in a Better Homes & Gardens cookie book.  The book has been misplaced so I have not made those bars in many years.  They were, however, one of my childrens favorite cookies when I made them.  I have made these a couple of times now, and they are very good.  The Sisters' recipe calls for additional peanut butter to be spread on the bars.  I leave this out due to personal preference.

We had to make a quick trip over the mountains to Tacoma and back yesterday.  When we have to spend several hours in the car, I like to make a sweet treat to take along.  Being a Butterscotch lover, I had been meaning to make Oatmeal Butterscotch Bars from Mel's Kitchen Cafe ever since she posted the recipe in May.  If you like butterscotch at all, make these!  They are decadent and delicious.  They are very rich and should probably be cut small.

There was a church potluck after church today.  I needed to make something on Friday that would keep OK till today.  Last year I made Praline Pecan Zucchini Bundt Cake from Real Mom's Kitchen.  The recipe calls for Butter Pecan Cake Mix.  After I used the two I had last year, I could not find that flavor any more in the stores in my town.  Last week I discovered some in a local store, on sale for .50 no less.  I bought up the five they had, so decided to make this cake.  This is so easy and makes a wonderfully moist cake.  It is the only recipe that I am actually willing to buy zucchini to make.  I did make the cake in a 9x13-in. pan instead of a bundt pan.  The original recipe has a wonderful praline sauce to pour over the cake.  Since I was taking this to a potluck, I just frosted the cake with (gasp!) commercial cream cheese frosting.  The photo is of three pieces that had survived the trip to church and back.

Tuesday is my mother's 92nd birthday, so the family took her to dinner tonight.  That coupled with being out-of-town on Saturday, meant that I did not cook this weekend.  On Friday I barbecued some country ribs in the oven to provide Hubby with dinner for the next two nights.  I made Caramelized Onion Barbecue Sauce from Prairie Story.  I had been going to make this for a while but kept forgetting to buy beer.  This was very good, and I will make it again.  I cooked the ribs and poured the barbecue sauce over them to marinate until Hubby warms them up.

All of these blogs have wonderful recipes.  Be sure to spend some time and look around if you go to check out any of these recipes.

I took all the photos for this post.  If you want to see better, more professional like photos, please visit the blogs.